


the fisherman and the fabulous creature

by Siriusstuff



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M, Magic, Merman Derek, Three Wishes, fisherman Stiles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-22
Updated: 2015-06-22
Packaged: 2018-04-05 14:57:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,184
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4184151
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Siriusstuff/pseuds/Siriusstuff
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stiles is a lucky fisherman.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the fisherman and the fabulous creature

**Author's Note:**

> This ficlet is my response to the prompt: i’m a fisherman and you’re a mermaid who got tangled in one of my nets au.  
> The word "fabulous" in the title is not in its usual sense of "You look fabulous, darling," but means "derived from or related to fable."

“I’ll thank you to let me out of your net, human,” the creature said, “or I’ll tip over your boat and drown you.”

“Wait! Don’t do that!” Stiles shrieked.

He was still astonished, still tightly gripping his net entangling the creature he’d hauled up from the sea.

Stiles had felt lucky that morning, with perfect conditions for a good catch: strong tide, moon still bright near setting in clear sky before dawn.

Stiles netted bait-fish he sold to game fishers back ashore on the landing. He’d filled nearly all his buckets when, with his last haul, he snagged something so weighty it almost pulled him overboard fighting his efforts to bring it in.

At first sight he’d thought a giant fish had half-way swallowed a man. But it was a half man half fish.

Stiles had caught a merman.

“Please loosen your grip at least,” the merman requested.

Stiles obliged, but at the same time reached for the club he used to knock nosy sharks.

At his back, to the east, the first spark of sunrise lit the sky. In the growing light Stiles could see even through the netting’s mesh that the merman was _beautiful_.

Stiles let the club drop.

“Alright—I’m—yes, let me just—” he stammered, pulling net away from the merman’s head.

How does one start conversation with a mythological being?

“How’d you get _in_ my net anyway?” Stiles asked. The creature was really wrapped up in it.

“I was freeing the little ones,” Merman answered.

“ _What_?” Stiles suddenly stopped his efforts at net removal.

Merman realized the fisherman must be awaiting more to his answer.

“There were little ones trapped in your net. I was setting them free. I free all the fish I find caught in nets.— _And_ I remove your horrible hooks from those stuck with them!”

“But…” Stiles reconsidered faulting the creature for its rescue missions. Instead he asked, “But what do _you_ eat?”

An ethical discussion with a mythological being he’d encountered only a few minutes before.—This would be a first for Stiles, in so very many ways.

“There are many delicious sea weeds on the sea bottom. I eat those.”

“Oh.”

Net removal was getting nowhere.

“I think if you stretch out alongside my boat and float there, this will be easier,” Stiles suggested.

The merman complied. Now beneath a brighter sky Stiles could see the creature in all his glory. He was lengthy. Stiles’s boat was a fifteen footer and the merman from head to tail seemed short by only a quarter of its length. His tail fin alone accounted for a couple or more feet: its design symmetrical and elegant curves, the skin between the rays of bones translucent and pale green. From the tail to the merman’s human hips were scales colored like gemstones, deep aquamarine and light emerald, with metallic gold scales scattered here and there.

Stiles’s colleagues kept themselves mostly covered, for protection from the elements, but he had seen men, on the decks of their pleasure craft and on the beaches, with muscled lean bodies, or muscled burly bodies.

The merman, even from what Stiles had spied only through the net’s tangles, looked better. And that was still without Stiles’s having a good look at his face.

But the net was coming loose at last—and that’s when Stiles remembered.

“Hey!” he barked towards the merman’s head, which, along with his shoulders and arms, was still in the net.

“You threatened to drown me. Is that what you plan to do when I free you? Capsize my boat and drown me?”

Through the net Stiles could not see the merman’s blush.

“No,” he said. “I shouldn’t have said that. I apologize.”

“Gonna say. You rescue fish but drown humans?” Stiles didn’t know why he pressed the issue. “And you’re not just _saying_ you won’t, either? You promise you won’t drown me?”

“I promise,” the merman replied, his voice so contrite Stiles believed him.

Stiles resumed the net-untangling process but then got distracted from his task as Merman continued speaking.

“You’re the first human I’ve actually met. I’ve seen so many of you, on huge ships and little boats like yours. I watch from the water all of you walking around on the land. My people tell stories, terrible frightening stories about humans. And I see for myself what your kind does to Mother Water, pouring in your poisons and all your filth, killing sea creatures till some of their kind are gone forever.—I always swore I _would_ drown any of you I ever met.—But I will not. I’m sorry I said that to you. I was frightened. I will not drown you, human. You have my word.”

Stiles had grown still and was silent. “I can’t apologize for billions of people and all their behavior,” he said, “but _I_ am sorry.—Also, thank you.” Now Stiles was determined to free the merman, and the last tangles were coming loose. “My people tell stories about your kind too—but mostly that you don’t really exist.”

( _Myth confirmed_.)

Finally the merman was free. Stiles expected him to dive below the waves, never to be seen again. He did dip underwater but then came up immediately, his hair, which Stiles now could see was long and black and wavy, slicked back over his head. Instead of fleeing the merman raised himself so that his arms rested on the boat’s side. He looked up and down its length. Stiles saw the merman’s eyes fall on his buckets, full of fish for sale as bait later, but the buckets were covered—and Stiles dearly hoped the merman’s polite nature would prevail and he wouldn’t ask about them.

With the morning advancing Stiles quickly forgot everything as he noted the sunlight glistening in the merman’s wet locks and sparkling in the water droplets hung in his eyelashes. When Stiles saw the merman’s eyes at last he realized their colors matched the fish scales’ spectrum of greens and blues and golds, even surpassing those scales in their resembling jewels. The planes of the merman’s face were artful, though nature alone had formed them. His cheek bones and jaw line made his face more beautiful than any human’s, man or woman, Stiles had ever seen.

Merman didn’t seem ready to leave, and Stiles thought it best to find something to talk about before he started rhapsodizing upon the merman’s looks.

“Do you have a name?” he asked.

“We share our names only with our kind. Names are powerful magic,” the merman responded instantly.

Stiles understood that. Only about three people in the world knew his birth name. His reason was different; nonetheless he understood.

But the word “magic” made him think of something else, something related to mermaid lore—which Stiles supposed must apply to mer _men_ too.

“So… speaking of magic, then is it true that mermaids—mer _men_ —grant wishes?”

For the first time since his initial indignation at being netted the merman’s demeanor changed from apparently friendly to possibly suspicious. He dropped from the boat side and floated back a few feet from it.

But again his response was immediate. “We grant wishes as an enforced trade for being set free after being caught— _yes_ , I know your stories.—But you freed me _voluntarily_ , human.”

“Oh,” was all Stiles said. No argument there. “True. OK.”

Then just as suddenly as the merman had turned cold his face lit up again. He returned to his prior position boat side, chin resting on his crossed arms.

“Buuut…” He drew out the word. “There’s _still_ something to trade for.”

“There is?” Stiles was baffled.

“You have little ones in those buckets,” the merman explained. “Return them home and I’ll grant you wishes.”

Not as stunned as he’d been when he first realized what he’d caught in his net that morning, still Stiles was stunned at the merman’s offer. He glanced at his boat’s aft end where of the twelve buckets he’d brought to sea that day nine sat brimming with seawater full of live bait-fish.

“For… _nine buckets of fish_ you’ll grant me… _three_ wishes?” Stiles asked, just to be sure.

“For the lives of all those little ones doomed to die today, for your returning them to their lives in Mother Water, _yes_ , I will grant you three wishes,” the merman answered, stating the deal’s terms.

“Done!” Stiles shouted. “Do we shake on it?” He extended his hand to the merman, who, looking only vaguely aware of what was happening, extended his.

Stiles brought their joined hands up and down once. Then he began by removing the vented covers to his catch containers and, lowering them to the water, gently emptying them.

The merman floated near, slipping underwater to watch the many, many small fish dart away into the depths.

At the end of the liberation he surged upwards into the air, slicking back his hair again and providing Stiles another glimpse of sculpted shoulders, upper arms, pectorals and stomach muscles, all gleaming with water. The merman was smiling, so very pleased, and it was glorious to behold.

Stiles knew what he would wish for.

Stiles knew much lore, not just about merfolk. He was also aware of the lore that told of those who got their wishes granted ending in utter disaster and catastrophe. But those wishers were always greedy, knew no bounds, and so unbalanced the order of the cosmos. They suffered the consequences.

Stiles’s wishes were simple—at least he hoped they qualified as simple.

The merman was back at his boat side perch, watching Stiles with crystal-colored eyes.

“Merman,” Stiles began, “my first wish is: I wish to know your name.”

The merman winced, then frowned. Stiles feared he’d already unbalanced the cosmic order. But then the merman floated back a few feet from the boat once again, appeared to tilt back his head, and sang a short quavering musical phrase that ended abruptly:

“Daaaaaaaiiiiiiirrrrrrr— _rick_!”

Stiles cocked his head.

“My kind sing more than we speak,” the merman explained.

“I promise I mean no harm to you in any way,” Stiles insisted. “May I repeat what I think you just said—uh, _sang_?”

The merman nodded.

“Thank you,” Stiles said, actually feeling some trepidation.--Was that the name’s magic?—“Dairrick?” Stiles repeated. “Derek?”

The merman nodded again.

“Thank you, Derek. My kind call me Stiles.”

Derek had never heard his own name from anyone but his clan and his kind. Its magic was still intact, though, even from a human’s mouth. And now Derek had that human’s name-magic too. And when he repeated, “Stiles,” he _felt_ that magic.

Derek and Stiles just kept looking at each other, both smiling, kind of like fools.

Yes, Stiles had known what he would wish for, at least for his next wish.

“Derek.” The sound of the name made Stiles shiver. “This is my second wish.”

He got onto his knees, in front of Derek, who just kept watching him, innocently.

“I wish to kiss you, Derek.”

Derek smiled, once more drawing away from the boat, though not far. But he sank into the water so that only his face remained above the surface.

Stiles had to lean out of the boat, over the water. For a split second he wondered, _Is he going to drown me after all_?

At least some part of Stiles didn’t care if that happened. He’d die kissing a merman.

_Kissing a merman!_

Gripping the boat side Stiles leaned over, lower and lower, like someone drinking from a river.

Their lips pressed together. Derek may have been a being from myth and fable but he kissed better than any human Stiles had ever kissed. Instead of his sinking deeper into the water Stiles felt Derek rising up again, slowly but firmly. Their mouths meshed. Stiles tasted salt, felt hands on his shoulders, then a tongue tip against his. Derek rose higher and higher out of the water, till Stiles rested on his knees again and it was Derek leaning over, their kiss unbroken.

When they parted, Stiles just stayed in place, eyes closed. His mind floated.

If Derek’s name was magic, Derek’s kiss was even more magic.

When Stiles opened his eyes Derek was watching him, this time not so innocently.

“I’m not making my third wish yet, just asking something about it. Is that OK, Derek?”

_Derek Derek Derek Derek Derek Derek Derek…_

“Yes, Stiles.”

_Stiles Stiles Stiles Stiles Stiles Stiles Stiles…_

“If my third wish is for us to meet again, or even again and again, after this, would you grant me that wish, Derek?”

_Derek Derek Derek Derek Derek Derek Derek…_

“Yes, I would, Stiles.”

_Stiles Stiles Stiles Stiles Stiles Stiles Stiles…_

“And if my third wish is for something else, something different than that, something small and minor, like a new shirt, would you still come meet me again, Derek, and again and again, after this, Derek?”

_Derek Derek Derek Derek Derek Derek Derek…_

Derek’s face was so close to Stiles’s face now. He was going to kiss him again.

“Yes, Stiles.”


End file.
